As is well known to those skilled in this art, neck rings are rotatable assemblies which cooperate with the parison mold to support the upper end of the parison as soon as it is formed and on through the remainder of the molding cycle. Neck rings of the prior art conventionally include a plurality of seqments which are held in closed position by a garter type spring which is the only means for holding the neck ring in a closed parison supporting position. Due to the limited holding force of such garter spring arrangements, every time that the parison is formed in the parison mold while in contact with the neck ring assembly, small amounts of molten glass are permitted to enter between the mating surfaces of the neck ring segments resulting in a high rate of wear on the movable and mating components of the assembly. As pointed out in co-pending application, Ser. No. 107,850 , owned by the same assignee as the present case, a neck ring assembly is disclosed which alleviates many of the problems of the prior art by providing for a greatly increased pressure between the mating neck ring segments in the closed position. The present invention is a further improvement in that it provides an improved structure for moving the neck ring segments from closed to open position and which requires the application of less force to accomplish the opening.